Sunday: Hili dialogue

May 5, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Sunday, May 5, 2019, and National Enchilada Day (be sure to eat the whole enchilada). It’s also Cinco de Mayo, celebrating the victory of the Mexican Army over the French at Puebla in 1862. Many Americans celebrate the holiday by feting Mexican food and culture, but of course this is dead wrong; HuffPo has an article with an annoyingly hectoring video and post telling us not to culturally appropriate. Listen to the Pecksniffian leisure fascist by clicking on the screenshot.

The answer, of course, is “hell no!”\

On May 5, 1494, in his second of four voyages to the Americas, Christopher Columbus landed on Jamaica and claimed it for Spain. On this day in 1821, Emperor Napoleon died in exile on the remote island of Saint Helena. He was 51, and it’s still not clear whether he died of stomach cancer or was poisoned accidentally or deliberately.  On this day in 1835, the first railway in mainland Europe opened, taking travelers between Brussels and Mechelen.

On this day in 1891, the “Music Hall” (later known as Carnegie Hall) opened in New York City, with Tchaikovsky the guest conductor of the first performance.  On May 5, 1904, Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched the first perfect game in “modern era” baseball against the Philadelphia Athletics in Boston. (A perfect game is one in which no batter reaches first base and 27 batters are retired.) 20 other such games have been recorded since then, with only one—pitched by Don Larsen—occurring in the World Series.

On May 5, 1920, the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for robbery and murder; both were electrocuted in August in 1927.  It’s an important day in the history of evolution education, for it was on May 5, 1925, that John T. Scopes was arrested in Dayton, Tennessee for violating the state’s Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of human evolution. After the trial, Scopes began graduate studies in geology at the University of Chicago and became an oil consultant, dying in 1970. Here’s a vanity photo of me at his grave in Paducah, Kentucky (the headstone of Scopes and his wife are hard to find in that graveyard, and I suspect few people visit it).

On May 5, 1945, the only combat fatalities on the American continent during World War II took place in Bly, Oregon. Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation:

Bly is also the site of the only fatalities of World War II in the U.S. continent due to an enemy balloon bomb attack. On May 5, 1945, a Japanese balloon bomb exploded as it was being pulled from the woods by curious picnickers. Killed in the explosion were: Elsie Mitchell, 26, wife of minister Archie E. Mitchell; Edward Engen, 13; Richard Patzke, 14; Jay Gifford, 13; Sherman Shoemaker, 11; and Joan Patzke, 13. Rev. Mitchell heard the explosion and discovered the bodies. The victims’ families were compensated by the government. A memorial was erected at what today is called the Mitchell Recreation Area.

Many of us remember May 5, 1961, when astronaut Alan Shephard became the first American to enter outer space. His Mercury mission was an “up and down” shot with no orbits, and lasted 15 minutes, going up 187 km. Finally, it was exactly two decades later that IRA operative Bobby Sands died in Long Kesh prison hospital on the 66th day of his hunger strike. He was 27.

Notables born on this day include Karl Marx (1818), Nellie Bly (1864), Helen Redfield (1900), Tyrone Power (1914), Tammy Wynette (1942), Michael Palin (1943), Brian Williams (1959), and Adele (1988).

Few notables died on this day: those who expired on May 5 include Napoleon (1821) and Bobby Sands (1981; see above).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the beasts are locked out of the house:

In Polish:

From reader Karl:

And from Facebook:

From a site I look at occasionally to remind me of the harassment that women face in Muslim countries that require veiling:

A tweet from Heather Hastie. There are plenty of cats and DUCKS in the video:

Tweets from Grania. Look at that cat jump about!

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1123380890388684800

In this case I’d just run away:

This deer prefers a cat lick to a salt lick, and the cat likes it too:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1121759753762418688

This girl picked a fight with the wrong moggie!

Tweets from Matthew. I probably mentioned a frogfish before, but this one is as ugly as a frog peeking through ice. But it’s still cool.

“This is all science, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

This lovely photo reminds me of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”:

https://twitter.com/Oniropolis/status/1124789071157579778

The most recalcitrant coffee ever!:

https://twitter.com/round_boys/status/1124677304981106688

26 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. It appears that, commemorating alan shepard’s ride, may 5 was designated national astronaut day in 2017 (a new tradition). I guess if it were international astronaut day it would be a month earlier on the anniversary of the yuri gagarin flight. In any case happy astronaut day to all ofyour astronaut readers.

  3. I am Mexican. Born and raised in Guadalajara. But I don’t look Mexican, that’s because of my Canadian/European parents, so if I was to wear a sombrero and fake mustachios I’d look like any other white dude “misappropriating” the culture I grew up in. Regardless of how I look I think I’ve earned the right to say this:

    To those that don’t like others enjoying their culture by adopting and even readapting it?

    Too bad. Get over it.

    True, in Mexico no one cares about that date. They teach it in school, but it’s a not a statutory holiday like Independence Day on September 16th, and it is also true that “Cinco de Mayo is like Taco Bell”. But if people like it, so be it. Who am I to tell a non-Mexican they shouldn’t like Taco Bell because real Mexican food doesn’t include fake processed cheddar cheese?

    1. Here in California, we don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo by going to Taco Bell. In fact it is a good day NOT to go to a Mexican restaurant unless you like long lines and hastily prepared food.

      1. I would not consider Taco Bell to be a Mexican restaurant. What I don’t understand is why many people here in New Mexico even go to Taco Bell when there is so much really great New Mexican food available everywhere.

        1. Same as McDonalds: speed of service, consistency, and price. Some people care more about these things than having a really good meal. I tend to seek out the better restaurants too but that isn’t easy either. I don’t know about in New Mexico but here in Southern California we still have to try lots of bad or mediocre restaurants in order to find the good ones. And the good ones are often crowded and a project to get into.

          1. We have a local fast food chain called Lottaburger which has pretty good New Mexican food. But then, Taco Bell does serve consistently bad food at a relatively low price and they are speedy.

        3. I do not consider Taco Bell, in fact most places that pretend to serve Mexican Food, I do not consider them Mexican Food.

          Many I like, once in a while, nothing wrong with that.

          Unfortunately, in Canada, there aren’t many good options. My wife and I sometimes drive to Buffalo or Pittsburgh, for shopping and we go to a couple of good places there. I guess its easier to get the ingredients and people with the experience.

  5. Cinco de Mayo is not a big holiday in Mexico. Here in the U.S. it is a much bigger deal, as it is mainly an excuse to partay, and to celebrate U.S. – Mexican ties. But according to this WaPo article, the battle that it commemorates was very significant to the course of the civil war in the U.S.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-get-cinco-de-mayo-wrong-but-were-not-wrong-to-celebrate-it/2019/05/03/7d15659e-6dbb-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html?utm_term=.455a1a5f4afd

  6. I’d love to know how the good doctor’s suppositories cure female homosexuality, considering that ‘anal worms which feed on semen’ are more likely, surely, to encourage women to engage in anal sex with men rather than engage in any form of sexual relations with women (well known for not producing sperm, whether intended for consumption by anal worms or not). A fascinating thesis, to be sure! Call up the Nobel committee!

    (The fact the hosts sit there and take it seriously is hilarious! What a farce!)

  7. The hairy frogfish, waving it’s little lure above it’s head, is just about enough to make me abandon Darwin and say, God didit!
    A God with a wacky sense of humor.

    1. If Godidit for the Frogfish, then surely Godidit2 for whichever mushrooms Godidit ate before performing the Frogfish Gogidtit. I think there’s a temporal paradox in there too, but I think a Gitdobit fits there too.

  9. The chefs quoted in the article you linked to made me laugh. They complain about their customers’ lack of knowledge about “real” Mexican food while their restaurants offer “a fresh spin on margaritas and micheladas, and a one-of-a-kind nitro horchata.” Let the cultural appropriation ring!

    1. It might also be noted that even Roland Freisler allowed attorneys for the defense.

  11. I tried to find the Scopes grave in Paducah, but without any luck. As I recall, there is a historical marker along the street near the cemetery that points out he is buried there.

  12. Today is the day that John Scopes was actually not-arrested. Once Scopes had agreed to be the defendant in the test case of the Butler Act, the committee that was promoting the trial simply declared that he had been arrested and would stand trial. The police never came and took him into custody, never photographed or fingerprinted him, and never put him in jail. Today is the anniversary of the declaration, but not of any arrest.

    1. That’s really encouraging. It means the advocates for Darwin were ready and willing to make a huge political point, and some sacrifice. Good for them. I’m hopeful that in our own time, there is the same level of support and energy to keep to the science in US schools.

  13. it was on May 5, 1925, that John T. Scopes was arrested

    There are a number of stories in the dates on that gravestone.

    He married a woman 5 years younger than him – which is probably pretty close to the mode.

    She outlived him by 20 years – which is probably a bit above the mode. Doing some of that outliving in the 1970s probably helped.

  14. Downloading the pretty sky picture.
    Still downloading …
    Still downloading …
    Making coffee …
    Still downloading …
    Nearly there. This is going to do nasty things to my browser when it tries to render.

    1. Looking through, I get a Michael Jackson ear worm. “I’m forever Blowing Bubbles”. The scars of recent supernovae. 62, as I count it, but there are probably numerous fainter/ lower contrast ones. A few tens of millennia worth, which sounds about right for the dissipating of the shock waves.
      Where’s SN1987A? If it’s in there, I can’t pick it out, meaning that it’s 32 years of expansion hasn’t made it obvious. They’ve done a fair bit of manipulation of exposure in the brighter star clouds to reduce oversaturation of the image though – which is acceptable for decorative work.

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